Asante Samuel brings the blanket coverage for Eagles
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By Bob Brookover
The Philadelphia Inquirer
(MCT)
PHILADELPHIA — Quintin Mikell made an interesting comparison last week as the Eagles prepared for Sunday's first-place showdown with the Dallas Cowboys at Lincoln Financial Field.
The Eagles' safety and defensive signal-caller said that Pro Bowl cornerback Asante Samuel provides the same kind of swagger for the defense that wide receiver Terrell Owens emanated during his first season when he was with the team.
"It is kind of like when T.O. was here," Mikell said. "Everybody on the offense had that same swagger as him, and it's kind of the same thing with (Samuel) on the defense."
Samuel, the Eagles' most vocal player on the practice field — and one of the least vocal when it comes to talking to the media — said he appreciated the compliment from his teammate.
"Swagger, to me, means you're confident," Samuel said after practice Thursday. "I think it's important that you feel good and you look good and you are as confident as you can be when you're on the field. I'm just trying to be myself and I want to help everybody play at the highest level they can play."
The strength of the Eagles' defense through seven games this season has been Samuel's greatest asset during his entire career: takeaways. The Eagles are tied with New Orleans for the league lead in takeaways with 21, and that includes five interceptions by Samuel.
"The most I ever had in a season was 12, counting the playoffs," Samuel said. "I want more than that this season."
Mikell said he's never seen another cornerback who can close on the football like Samuel does.
"He just knows how to break for the ball," Mikell said. "He keeps his shoulders low and he's always inside the guy. He does the whole thing perfect. I feel like the coaches teach us off the stuff he's done."
Samuel's game isn't all about speed and talent, however.
"I think what Asante does is, he studies the game a lot better than people give him credit for," Mikell said. "He knows how to read routes and he knows how to read quarterbacks. Sometimes that works great and sometimes it doesn't, but he works well within our system and he goes and gets that rock no matter where it's at."
Samuel said he studies opposing quarterbacks, but he's not a film-room freak.
"A lot of people don't think I study film," he said. "I know how to look at it and I think I know what to look for. I take a couple of things out of each team: some tendencies that I might go after. I don't try to memorize everything. I take two or three things and I go with that."
Mikell also said Samuel is different than any defensive player he's ever seen, and if you watch an Eagles practice you'd understand why. Samuel is a nonstop agitator, throwing oral challenges in the direction of his offensive teammates.
He didn't initially do much talking last season after signing the six-year, $57 million free-agent deal that made him the highest-paid defensive player in franchise history.
"He's definitely more comfortable," Mikell said. "He's able to joke around with us a lot more. He's being himself. Last year was really an awkward situation with Lito (Sheppard) and him and Sheldon (Brown). Now, it's his spot and he's having fun with it and we're letting him."
Samuel, 28, said he first started taunting teammates in his fourth season in New England, the same year he had a dozen interceptions.
"Me and (Tom) Brady started going back and forth at each other," he said.
Now, it's Samuel and McNabb, but they obviously have a great relationship. While Samuel talked to a reporter after a recent practice, McNabb walked by the two-time Pro Bowl cornerback and put words in his mouth.
"'Yeah, that's what I'm saying, don't throw to my side,' " McNabb said. " 'That's a bad move.' "
Samuel laughed.
While the veteran cornerback has bonded with his Eagles teammates in his second season, he has remained cautious about giving interviews. He has the "10-percent rule," which means he talks to the media only 10 percent of the time.
That's a shame, because he's an interesting person with some good stories to tell, including one about his lack of foot speed as a youth in South Florida.
"When I played little league, I was always a quarterback," Samuel said. "I was 90 pounds and I'd take off and my coach would yell, 'Asante, you're slow as molasses.' Everybody out there would talk about how slow I was ... and I let that get in my head. I wanted to be fast."
Samuel got his mother to buy him running parachutes and strength shoes designed to increase his speed. He also made his mother hold a stopwatch.
"My mom would be outside with me at 10 o'clock at night timing me in the 40 in the dark," Samuel said. "I was always conscious about working on my speed, my technique, my footwork, and my breaks."
He got faster. At the urging of his high school coach, Perry Egelsky, he switched from quarterback to cornerback his senior season.
"He told me that was the only way I was going to college," Samuel said. "He told me I wasn't going to college as a 5-foot-7 quarterback. I knew I had to get faster and stronger if I wanted to play defense."
He did both and landed at Central Florida, where his position coach, Gene Chizik, now the head coach at Auburn, taught him how to become an elite cornerback.
"Everything I do now I pretty much learned from him," Samuel said.
Samuel's drive and devotion have given him swagger and, according to Quintin Mikell, the two-time Pro Bowl cornerback's swagger is spreading to the entire Eagles defense.
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(c) 2009, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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